Go Mobile-last, Not Mobile-first. Attention-first, Nativity later.

Casey Newton published a great piece on The Verge that talked about how big a nightmare getting a sustainable mobile app success story is. That got me thinking about how could we fundamentally redesign our processes of how we think and implement our plans for going from nothing to a mobile app with growing distribution.

With the ever-increasing volume of apps, there is no argument against the fact that beating Google and Facebook, the two most popular developers that own most of the most used apps in the world, has become insanely difficult. Most apps that are playing a strong game against these two behemoths are mainly social (or messaging platforms).

Too much of anything is not good is as true in technological trends as it is in life.

App fatigue is a real problem. The discoverability struggles on App Stores and pervasiveness of smartphones add fuel to the fire for mobile app developers for creating sticky products with predictable and growing revenue streams. Even the tech titans struggle to repeat mobile app success stories.

I don’t think its worthwhile going mobile-first in hopes of becoming the next big app story. I think what developers should work on in the current mobile climate is to find creative ways of leveraging existing incumbent platforms like Facebook, Instagram, WeChat, Youtube, Twitter and new platforms like Telegram, Snapchat, Slack and Periscope before building out their native apps.

All these platforms have massive built-in attention. Look around. Most of the people using their smartphones right now are most likely to be on one of these platforms. Each platform has its own native set of features and quirks. Leveraging these platforms to amass “attention” is relatively simpler than building your own app and amassing attention for your app.

Now, these platforms will obviously not give you the flexibility that you get when you are building your own product from scratch.

But, with the ever-expanding information overload, growing app fatigue and narrowing attention spans, what you need is not flexibility. What you truly need is attention.

Once you have the attention of users on the meaning that your product is trying to make, you can build a native app and expect your audience to download and use it regularly.

Buzzfeed has implemented this strategy of going mobile-last phenomenally. Buzzfeed leveraged every social platform to get the attention of its audiences on its videos. They built a loyal audience that would consciously search for the Buzzfeed profiles on Facebook to watch the videos. Once they had created meaning in the lives of thousands of people and made its product a part of their daily routines, they launched a beautifully designed and thoughtful app exclusively for consuming its video content. Since it already had massive user base living on third party platforms, it could get its users to use its new native app. It did not need to game the App Store ranking algorithms for survival. I know my friends have downloaded the app and they use it daily. They do not keep up with tech news at all. Despite that, they know about it.

Buzzfeed went from dependence to independence rather than independence to integration for distribution.

Most products go mobile-first these days. And, then, they integrate with other platforms for greater distribution. The most common form of such integration is the viral loop of sharing content from within the native app onto other platforms. Vine had it. Meerkat had it. Anchor has it. Stolen had it.

What I am suggesting here is to go mobile-last. First, you spread your message or purpose on platforms that have the attention. Later, you leverage the attention to drive users to adopt the native apps or platforms.

Lets not confuse attention with the number of eyeballs the way advertisers and brands conflate impressions with actions or engagements.

So, lets say you want to make the millionth photo collage app. As per the mobile-last model, I would try to make micro content for various social platforms and sows seeds for potential relationships with the prospective users. I would engage with the audiences, delight them with collages via some manual effort to show the value proposition, differentiate my message using content, and do everything I can to get attention.

Lets say, I am scrolling through my feed on Twitter or Facebook. I see a promoted tweet or a Facebook dark post explaining your collage concept. Lets say I get interested and I see how you are different than others. When you see me engaging with you, you could reach out to me asking for some pictures that I would like to make a collage of. You do your magic, serve me well and show me your purpose. If you really are as good as you think you are, you just got yourself a user without making the app. Make meaning in my life and you will have my trust and attention. When you launch your app, I will become your first paying user. Note that the above example is overly simplified version of what could be done.

Instead of designing and developing an app from the very outset, creatively designing bits and pieces of your concept natively on existing platforms can help find product-market fit, gather feedback, leverage established distribution channels and most importantly, get attention of potential users without going through the struggles of developing, iterating and deploying an app that competes for a spot on homescreen and mindshare with a hundreds of other apps.

Now, when one doubles down on leveraging the platforms, products are going to face varying degrees of platform risk. Josh Elman of Greylock Partners does a brilliant job at explaining how to navigate through platforms and tacking platform risks.

Please hit the recommend button so that we can get to use amazing services that go unnoticed just because of the inherent problems within the traditional app ecosystem. 😅

Tweet me with your thoughts.